


Regatta

by YourLocalEccentricScientist



Category: Moominvalley (Cartoon 2019), Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Child Neglect, Gen, children looking after children, everyone almost drowns, fun times
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21604399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourLocalEccentricScientist/pseuds/YourLocalEccentricScientist
Summary: In which Little My learns about the perils of boat racing.
Relationships: Lilla My | Little My & Snorkfröken | The Snork Maiden, Lilla My | Little My & Snusmumriken | Snufkin
Comments: 20
Kudos: 68





	1. In Which There Are Two Boat Races

Little My scowled at the crib where the baby lay. It was just like her mother, she thought sourly, to insist on going to a regatta with one of her gentleman friends on the same day Mymble Jr. was stepping out with her latest beau. The Mymble hadn’t even realised that would leave no one to look after the youngest of her brood until My herself brought it up-- not because she cared about the mewling, pathetic little thing, she thought hastily, but because she was sure she’d somehow get the blame for it if it went and died or something while its mother was gadding about. When she’d rather indignantly told the Mymble this, however, she merely looked at My confusedly for a moment, before saying cheerfully, “Well, how about you look after him, dear? You are the second oldest, after all.” It seemed to My that being the second oldest just meant that you had all the chores of the oldest with none of the authority. She’d been about to tell her mother this, along with quite a few other things, when she realised that she was already out the door, her swarm of children following behind her. Now, the house was quiet and still, apart from the gurgling noises the baby occasionally made and the ticking of the clock, a regular reminder that she was going to spend her entire day stuck inside the house. 

She sighed, and trotted over to the cradle. She had to push a chair up against it in order to look inside: it seemed like another of the privileges that My’s position as second oldest didn’t entitle her to was any sort of height. She was still adamant that she was due for a growth spurt, but it was looking less and less likely every year, no matter how much of her anger she tried to channel into goading herself into growing. When she was finally up high enough, she peered over the edge of the crib at her charge, hoping against hope that the babbling wasn’t a sign that she’d need to do something to it. 

It wasn’t the worst infant she could have been stuck with, she conceded reluctantly. It was a fairly calm child, who seemed perfectly content in lying there and not causing her any trouble. Certainly more than one could say of its father, from what she’d heard; she wondered if the baby’s calm demeanor would change at all if she brandished a sign in its direction, or sternly told it not to do something. Best not to find out, she thought, clambering back down to ground level. 

No, what she really objected to was the fact that there was so little you could do when saddled with a baby. You couldn’t run or play or cause a ruckus, because if you did you could be fairly sure that something would set the little dear off, and then you could bid your eardrums farewell-- though this one was placid most of the time, when it got upset it really got upset. You couldn’t even go outside-- perhaps why their mother was so eager to be off this morning, thought My bitterly. Why couldn’t you go outside, anyway? Yes, if you stayed inside you’d have all the endless things that babies needed on hand, but this one hardly ever needed anything, and even if it did there was going to be a delay anyway while My tried to find a way to haul it down from the mountainous heights of its crib. Maybe it was because the outdoors was too dangerous for a baby, too full of bears and suchlike, but My was fairly sure she could take on any bear who tried to attack her or one of her siblings. 

And Little My had had such a lot of things she’d wanted to do today! When Mymble had announced that she was going to a regatta yesterday, she hadn’t been quite sure what it was, though she’d taken pains to tell her siblings that that wasn’t the case. She’d had to check in the dictionary that was stored away on a shelf in the living room, which was no easy task, given the fact it was larger than her. Finally, she’d found it:

“Regatta: A boat race or series of boat races.”

She’d scoffed at the time-- she and the others had boat races all the time in the river nearby their house, there was no need for her mother to spend an entire day seeking one out-- but now she had the hankering to take a basket and go flying down the rapids, and she was stuck inside with this useless infant! It was so unfair! 

Then she hesitated. Boat racing wasn’t a very active sport, was it? Or at least, it wasn’t the way they played it at the Mymble’s house-- there was no need for oars or other such fripperies when the river flowed so fast. All you had to do was push off the bank and then sit back in your basket while you were whisked away by the current. It was the easiest thing in the world-- even a baby could do it. So, why shouldn’t a baby do it-- especially with its caring second oldest sister there to take care of it? My couldn’t see a reason why not. Her mind made up, she strode over to the crib, already thinking of ways she could maneuver the child out of it.   
“So who wants to have their own regatta, a better one than that boring one that Mother’s gone to?”  
The baby chortled happily. 

* * *

The river was flowing fast for this time of year, Little My observed, maybe dangerously so. She brushed the thought away: she’d done this millions of times before, she knew what she was doing. Still, the baby hadn’t done it before-- but she’d be there, it wouldn’t be too much of a risk… She shook her head furiously, trying to get rid of her lingering worry. It would be fine. Or at least, it would be, if she could manage to drag the baskets over to the river before her mother got back. It was more difficult than it usually was, because the infant was sitting in the top one, and it wouldn’t stop wriggling. With a grunt, she gave the baskets a final yank and managed to drag them to the bank of the river, leaving them teetering on the brink. 

“Alright,” she said. “Now the only thing to do is for me to get in my basket and for you to quit squirming so much. Honestly, you’ll tip yourself in before the race has even begun, at this rate.”  
The child didn’t seem to pay her warning much heed, entirely preoccupied by the enthralling realisation that it had feet, and that if it tried it could probably fit one of them in its mouth. Huffing, My focused on extracting her own basket from the pile. It was a difficult task-- the baby was almost as big as her, even though it was a newborn, and it wouldn’t stop moving around on top of the stack, making the whole thing wobble as she tried to pry the layers apart. With a hiss of annoyance, she slid her hand in between the baskets, trying to avoid getting her fingers caught beneath her sibling’s shifting weight. 

“Stop it, will you?” she muttered. To her surprise, the wriggling stopped for a moment. Confused, she halted, wondering if the child had suddenly died or something. Then, with a gurgle of glee, the baby redoubled its thrashing, rocking the entire pile from side to side.   
My groaned. Of course, the thing was a Joxter’s spawn: if she told it to do something, it would try and do the exact opposite. It was unusual that it had heard its life’s calling while still in babyhood, but there again, its father was apparently a particularly troublesome Joxter-- if any child was going to develop a sense of mischief so early on, it would be this one. Snarling in frustration, she attempted to steady the baskets, but they were moving so much now that she couldn’t get a grip on them.   
“Quit it!” she yelled. “I’m serious, if you carry on like that you’re going to--”

With a particularly vigorous sway, the tower overbalanced, and the topmost basket was flung into the water, baby and all. 

For a moment, all My did was stand there, watching the basket as it was swept away. At least it had landed the right side up, she thought dully; the baby seemed none the worse for the tumble, sitting up and looking around with interest as they were carried away downstream. They narrowly missed a branch that jutted out over the river, and laughed at their brush with misfortune as though they hadn’t nearly been thrown into the dark rushing water. 

The thought of her baby sibling struggling and crying as they sank into the river's icy embrace broke My from her thrall. Suddenly, she was able to move again, and wasted no time in leaping into action. She grabbed another basket from the stack (why she’d thought it necessary to bring so many, she didn’t know) and flung herself into the river. She could catch up-- she was the best at boat racing in the entire Mymble clan. She knew all the obstacles, all the places you could depend on the current to pick up to give you an extra burst of speed. Yes, she could keep up. She had to. 

Soon Little My was flying down the river, but the baby had had a fair head start, and try as she might, the basket remained out of reach. She was gritting her teeth to lean out of her vessel and try to grab at the edge of it again when she saw the fork ahead.   
After a while, the river outside the Mymble’s house branched into two streams, the right flowing into a small lake nearby and the left running on to goodness knows where. While My had considered exploring down the left fork once or twice, she’d always balked at how fast the tributary flowed, and instead had finished the race the same way she usually did-- by grabbing on to the branches of the weeping willow that grew over the fork, and making sure her boat was headed for the lake before letting go again. Now, she fervently wished that she’d managed to summon up the courage to try at least once. If the basket went down the left stream, then she had no idea where it would end up. Her heart pounding, she urged her basket on faster, pushing off a log that jutted up from the riverbed in an attempt to gain more speed. 

The baby, meanwhile, had sensed that something was wrong-- they had started to cry, their arms waving uselessly as they were carried further and further away. Though it was ridiculous to think that the child was capable of thought at this age, My couldn’t help but think they sounded accusatory, every wail a frantic plea to know why she’d done this to them. She bit her lip, and threw her weight against the left side of her basket to steer it towards the centre of the river, where the current was quicker. Why wasn’t she going faster? She was only half a foot away now-- she could almost reach one of the basket’s handles-- but the fork was approaching ever faster, and she still couldn’t quite grab it. In a final desperate attempt to catch her youngest sibling, she flung herself half out of the basket and managed to seize onto the side. But the basket was soaked from its journey downstream, and her hands slipped on the damp straw, doing nothing but shunting the basket to the left. The last thing Little My saw before her momentum tipped her own basket over was her tiny sibling being carried off downstream, into the unknown. 

My was no stranger to the occasional boating accident-- the Mymble’s children didn’t exactly play by the rules when they raced, after all, and shoving someone out of their basket was seen as nothing more than a clever strategy to eliminate the competition-- but now she was exhausted and, though she was loathe to admit it, terrified, and it seemed so much harder to fight against the current and the drag of her clothes than it usually was. She thrashed her limbs madly, trying to break the surface, though she wasn’t sure which way was up any more. All she knew was cold, and dark, and panic raging in her chest. You lost them. You lost them because you couldn’t wait for one day to have a boat race. One of her hands brushed against something, and she almost opened her mouth to scream when she realised it was one of the willow’s branches, one long enough to trail in the water. Shoving her fear to the back of her mind, she focused on grabbing hold of it, and using it to haul herself out of the river. She would be no good to her sibling if she was drowned. 

Finally, spluttering and coughing, she flung herself onto the bank, at the roots of the willow tree. She only allowed herself a few seconds before she dragged herself to her feet, squinting down the left fork of the river to try and find a sign of the baby. But no matter how hard she looked, there was nothing-- not even an-- an empty basket. Clenching her teeth, Little My forced herself to start walking. If she couldn’t see them now, that was fine. She’d just keep walking until she did find them, or-- or-- well, she’d find them, anyhow. But she’d only taken a few steps when her legs suddenly gave out under her. Her time in the river had taken more out of her than she’d realised: she wasn’t even sure she could get back to the house, never mind make it all the way to the end of the tributary. 

Lying there, facedown in the muddy grass, unable to even get up, My truly felt Little. Like a stupid child who couldn’t be trusted even to look after themselves, never mind anyone else. She felt tears welling up, and she swallowed harshly. No, she wasn’t going to cry-- she wasn’t-- she couldn’t! Was she really such a baby that she was going to cry? But that made her think of her youngest sibling who could even now be out at sea, the way they’d screamed as they’d realised the danger they were in, and before she could stop herself she was sobbing. She’d made such a mess of everything. Why had the Mymble put her in charge? She knew that My was irresponsible and reckless, even if she was the second oldest. Oh no, she hadn’t even thought of her mother until now-- how was she supposed to tell her that her child could be dead by now, and that it was all her fault? She sobbed harder. 

Eventually though, she had to get up, even if tears were still streaming down her face and it felt like her heart could burst out of her chest with the anger she felt at herself and her own stupidity. With a final sniff, she forced herself to stop, trying to wipe away the wetness on her cheeks with her still-damp sleeve as she clambered to her feet. Carefully, she took a few steps, and confirmed that she could probably walk back now. Part of her wanted to immediately start along the river, but she knew that she was ill-prepared for a trek like that as she was, soaking wet and covered in mud, and that even if she did manage it there-- there might not be anything left to find, by now. The thought almost made her start crying again, but she clenched her jaw and held back her tears. If she wanted to try and help her sibling, wherever they were now, her best bet was to get back and tell the Mymble, who could probably get some adults to help in the search. With a final, hopeless look at the dark river, Little My turned around and headed home. 


	2. In Which Snorkmaiden Does a Terrible Job of Applying her Makeup

“... So what happened?”

Snorkmaiden leaned forward in her seat, her eyes wide and concerned, the makeup she’d been applying when My had stormed in and demanded to talk lying forgotten on the vanity. My didn’t like that look she was giving her: she was telling her this so she could get a second opinion from someone who wasn’t as daft as Moomin, not to be pitied. She gave a disdainful sniff.   
“What do you think happened? Have you ever seen Mother with a Joxter-looking child?” Snorkmaiden looked horrified, which was hardly better. Little My sighed.   
“We searched all night, and a good bit into the morning. Mother had a whole herd of her gentleman and lady callers out searching, and all us children-- those who were old enough-- were out looking too. None of us found anything-- no basket, no baby, no nothing. Eventually, we had to give up.” She remembered throwing a tantrum when she heard that, screaming and biting and scratching, giving them the slip and running off to search further along the river. It hadn’t done any good, of course. She’d still found nothing, still had to return to the house later, still had to sit through breakfast while her mother, usually so cheerful, had sat there silent and shaking. The chill of the river seemed to have sunk into their family’s very bones. 

Snorkmaiden was looking worried again, so she pressed on. “I wouldn’t tell you this for no reason. You see--” My paused, wondering how to explain. “-- the basket I put the baby in wasn’t empty. Even I knew better than to put a child in something like that without anything to cushion them. So, I put an old hat in there-- one that the baby’s father had left behind the last time he visited.”  
Snorkmaiden looked confused. “Um… Little My, I’m sure that hat was very important, but--”  
“It’s the same hat that that vagabond wears.”  
“That vagab-- wait, Snufkin?”  
Snorkmaiden’s eyes widened in realisation. My wondered if her own eyes had been as wide when she’d seen that figure waving at them from the shoreline, that terribly familiar hat on its head.   
“Wait, but that means--”   
“Yes.” Little My sighed, and rested her chin on her paws, looking glumly at the ground. She wished she’d thought to bring something to chew on, to sooth the knotted feeling in the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t thought she’d need it, given how much talking she’d have to do to explain things, but now a dreadful cold feeling was rising in her throat, like water flooding her insides, and she needed to chase it away. 

“That’s wonderful, Little My! How soon can you send word to the Mymble? Will she know how to find his father? I know Joxters travel about a fair bit, but--”  
“I can’t tell them.”  
“What?” Incredulity rang in every syllable. My kept her eyes fixed firmly on the floorboards.  
“You heard me. I can’t.”  
“Why on earth not?” Snorkmaiden sounded angry now-- My could see her tail lashing from the corner of her eye, the fluff at the end of it beginning to bristle. “You have the chance to put everything right, and you’re just throwing it away? How could you, My? Doesn’t Snufkin deserve to meet his family, to know where he came from? This is low even for you--”

“Mother said I could stay at Moominhouse.” Little My forced the words out quickly, her paws fisted in her lap, her eyes still pinned to the ground.   
“What?”  
“Moominpappa phoned her after he realised I was still in the house. Mother said that they could keep me.” My felt herself begin to shake, and clenched her fists tighter. She longed to sink her teeth into one of them, just to have something to distract her from the terrible loud quiet that she was speaking into, but she resisted the urge. “She didn’t hate me. She loves me. Of course she does. But I hurt her so badly that day, I don’t-- I don’t--” Her voice broke, and she huffed a quick breath before continuing, “I don’t want the same thing to happen with my brother.” She shut her mouth firmly, clenching her jaw. She was older, now-- she was better at stopping the sobs. Still, she couldn’t stop her breath stuttering, her heart feeling as though it was collapsing in her chest, the trembling in her limbs. Why was she still so weak?

There was silence following her speech, filled only with the sound of the two girls’ breathing, one even and low, the other short and staccato. Little My couldn’t bring herself to look up, not when Snorkmaiden was so quiet and her own eyes felt like they might start brimming over at any moment. She was about to leap out of her seat and flee the room when the snork spoke.   
“...I’m so sorry, My. About that, and for saying what I said. Do you--” she hesitated, “Do you want a hug?”  
“What?” Little My looked up, all thoughts of crying driven out by the sheer absurdity of the suggestion.   
You look like you-- you could use a hug.”  
“No!” My snapped, scowling ferociously. “What I want is to know what to do. You’re the only other sensible person around here, and you probably have some good advice in you-- or so I thought.”  
“You did?” My could hear the surprise in Snorkmaiden’s voice, and frowned even more furiously.   
“I won’t think it much longer, if you don’t bother to help me!”  
“Right,” Snorkmaiden tried (badly) to hide her smile. My rolled her eyes.   
“Well, out with it, then!”  
“Um,” Snorkmaiden hesitated, the sparkle fading from her eyes. “First, I want to say sorry for-- for what I said, just then. I suppose-- my brother and I grew up without our parents too. Whenever I asked him about it, he used to get all gruff, and said that we were better off without them. I suppose he was right-- he told me why we travelled without them when I was older, and it wasn’t because they were too caring-- but I would have liked the chance to at least know who they were.” Her voice was quiet, barely more than a murmur. “I-- I don’t mean to try and make it seem like lashing out like that was alright for me to do, but-- well, I suppose the whole situation hit a little too close to home.”   
My shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She’d known that the snorks’ parents were absent, of course, but she’d had no idea why, or for how long that’d been the case.   
Snorkmaiden noticed her unease. “Hey, it’s alright, you know? Like I said, I didn’t say that to make you feel sorry for me, or anything. I just-- I wanted to explain, not excuse.”

She took a deep breath, and straightened her shoulders. “Now. Advice! And also makeup, I completely forgot about that.” She reached for her discarded pan of eyeshadow, and began to apply it with a fiddly little brush. “... I understand you don’t want him to hate you, My, but-- Snufkin really does have a right to know. He may want nothing to do with the Mymble or that Joxter, but he should at least get to choose for himself whether he wants them in his life.”  
Little My frowned, fidgeting with the hem of her smock. “That’s all very well for you to say. You’re not the one who’s going to have to tell him that he grew up without parents because you shoved him in a basket and flung him in a river.”  
“I agree, you maybe shouldn’t phrase it like that.” Snorkmaiden carefully dabbed pigment into the crease. “How old were you when it happened, by the way?”  
“Five,” said My glumly. Snorkmaiden almost poked herself in the eye with the brush.   
“Five? I thought you said you were the second oldest!”  
“The second oldest one still at home,” My corrected. “I thought you probably knew I wasn’t the second oldest all together-- you’ve met my mother, you must know there’s a few siblings between me and Mymble Jr..”  
Snorkmaiden looked aghast, and My was fairly sure it was only partly because she’d smudged her careful gradient. “My… If Snufkin blames you for what happened, then you don’t want him as a friend anyway. And frankly, neither do I!”  
My looked skeptically at Snorkmaiden, not sure where this indignation had come from. “He’d be right to blame me. No one was goading me into a boat race that day.”

The other girl sighed, putting down the brush without attempting to fix her ruined eyeshadow. “Look… Did you know, when I was four, I set fire to Snork’s tail?”  
The cackle that burst from My surprised even herself-- it seemed like it had been years since she’d felt anything apart from misery and nervous anticipation, though their conversation must have lasted less than an hour. “You did?!”  
Snorkmaiden smiled ruefully. “I’d read in a book once that you could set things on fire using lenses, and that afternoon my brother had dozed off on his desk with his glasses beside him… I didn’t mean for his tail to end up singed-- I wanted to burn an ugly jumper that he insisted I wear whenever it was cold.”  
Little My grinned. “You need to come on adventures more often. It’s exhausting being the only one around to liven things up, I could use your help.”  
“Heh, I rather think it put me off that sort of mischief for life. I hadn’t realised that fire spreads if you don’t do something about it, and the Snork’s room was always littered with papers, no matter how short a time we’d stayed in a place… We barely managed to stop it spreading to the rest of the house, and needless to say, we weren’t welcome to stay for the whole week we’d paid for.”  
“Oh.”   
“Yes, my brother wasn’t very pleased with me.” Snorkmaiden’s expression sobered. “I’d never seen him so angry, not even that time a park keeper told us to move along because we were making things look untidy. All the while he was apologising to the landlady, and paying her what he could, and looking for lodgings elsewhere, I could tell that he was furious.When we finally sat down for a break, I was terrified of what he was going to say to me. But--” She smiled wistfully. “-- he didn’t say anything. And when I said I was sorry, he just sighed and said that while he appreciated it, he was sorrier. He should have known not to leave a child alone with nothing to do, especially since there were more dangerous things in that room than his glasses-- like the knife he used to sharpen his pencils with, or his fishing hooks.”  
“... So, why are you telling me this?” My didn’t have time for Snorkmaiden to wax lyrical about her brother, not when the situation with her own hung in the balance.   
“Well, I was just getting to that, but then I was interrupted.” My glared. Snorkmaiden smiled serenely at her. “My point is that my brother realised that it’s not really fair to blame a four-year-old for getting up to mischief when you’ve left them alone, especially when they’ve clearly learnt their lesson.”  
Little My frowned. She wanted to be able to grab at the hope Snorkmaiden had offered, pull it safe and warm around her to keep out the chill of that river. But she couldn’t help but scrutinise every word for a loophole that could make the whole thing fall apart. “... I was five.”  
Snorkmaiden groaned in frustration. “That’s not the point, My, and you know it!”  
“What is the point, then?”  
“That if Snufkin decides to hate you because you made a horrible mistake when you were five that you clearly regret, then he’s not worth the bother!”  
“...What about Mother?” It came out quieter, fainter than My liked; she barely recognised it as her own voice.   
Snorkmaiden hesitated, looking conflicted. “My… I don’t know. I suppose I should be understanding, since she did lose her child, but-- she was the one who left a five-year-old in charge of a baby, because she hadn’t thought about the fact that it needed looking after. I know she was hurt, but she’s at least partly at fault here. If she’s still blames you, then-- then she’s wrong to do so.”

It was one of those rare occasions when Little My wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t sure what she thought, even, which was still rarer: she prided herself on knowing her own mind, and other people’s too, even when they didn’t know them themselves. But now-- could she really accept that her mother had been wrong? She wasn’t sure. It felt like cheating, like she was betraying her mother by even considering it. The Mymble had been hurt terribly by what had happened; even now, there was something broken in her smile that hadn’t been there before the day of the regatta. To claim it was her fault, to shuck all that responsibility onto her shoulders-- was that right? My sighed. She hated this kind of uncertainty, hated feeling it bubbling within her and being completely unable to do anything about it. She longed to have something to chew on, something to throw her nervous energy at. At the very least it would be something to do other than worry. 

“Look,” My was startled from her thoughts by Snorkmaiden’s voice. “You don’t have to decide what to do right now-- it’s a big decision, and there’s a lot to think about.”  
“But you think I should tell him.”  
“I don’t... That’s not my decision to make,” Snorkmaiden shrugged helplessly in the face of Little My’s glare. “It’s true! I can judge all I like, but in the end I’ve never had to make this kind of decision. You’re the only one who can decide what’s the right thing to do here.”  
“So what you’re saying is that you’re not going to be at all useful.” My knew it wasn’t exactly fair to say that, but it felt better to grumble than to dwell on her anxiousness.   
The snork rolled her eyes. “I’d normally take offence at that, but I have a feeling that you don’t really mean it.” She stood up. “For now, why don’t we see if Moominmamma has finished baking that pie? That way, at least you don’t have to decide on an empty stomach.”  
My swung herself down of the dresser where she’d been perched and ran for the door, glad of the distraction. “Well, you’ll have to hurry up if you want any. I’m so hungry, I think I could eat the whole thing!”  
“Hey!” Snorkmaiden scrambled to her feet. “At least let me fix my eyeshadow first!”  
Little My merely laughed, and made for the stairs. 


	3. In Which There Is an Important Conversation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: In which the author's shaky relationship with canon well and truly goes off the rails.

Snufkin was fishing on the day Little My went out to meet him. It was a bright, beautiful day, with a sky that looked as though it had never known a dark cloud, let alone allowed it to take up residence. Despite this, Snufkin was huddled in his coat, hunched so far over on the bridge that his hat had slid forward over his eyes. Normally this would be a prime opportunity to try and sneak up behind him and push him into the water, but given what she was planning on telling him it might be better to resist the urge this time. Besides, he always seemed to be one step ahead of her where pranks were concerned. 

It was just as well that she’d stopped herself: Snufkin straightened up as soon as she stepped onto the bridge, smiling at her with his habitual strange smile that seemed to imply that he knew something you didn’t.   
“Good morning, little one,” he said. My huffed.   
“It’s _Little My_. Besides, I’m older than you! I should be the one calling you insulting nicknames.”  
“I would hardly say ‘little one’ was insulting,” said Snufkin peaceably, fiddling with the fishing rod. “Plenty of very important things are little-- those who forget that are apt to rue the day they did so.”  
“I don’t intend to let anyone forget how important I am,” said My pridefully. “But enough of your ramblings. I came here to talk to you about something serious.”  
“Well, go on then.” said Snufkin, apparently done with whatever he was fidgeting with, but not so done that he was going to look up from the river. My sighed, wondering how best to begin.   
“... Um.”  
“Not a very good start.” Snufkin noted. “You might want to try using words.”  
With a growl of irritation, My tried again.   
“... Look, do you remember much of when you were younger? Were you ever not a wanderer?”  
_At least, not a full-time wanderer_ , she added to herself. Even when he was an infant, he’d had a habit of tipping himself out of the Mymble’s lap and crawling off into some hard-to-reach place-- the urge to roam was with him from birth, it seemed. 

For a while, it seemed like Snufkin wasn’t going to answer: he continued to fish in silence, his eyes fixed firmly on the river. Just when My was about to ask again (and maybe poke him in the side as well, just to make sure he hadn’t died or fallen asleep with his eyes open, or something), he began to speak.   
“... I was found washed up on the shores of a river in a basket, near a small town-- or at least, so they told me at the orphanage I was sent to. Nasty place, that-- far too many people there, at far too many hours of the day, talking far too much about learning to write joined-up and washing behind one’s ears. I left as soon as I could, of course, but not before I’d spent a few years of trying and failing to do so. They did very little to prepare us for life on the road, there-- a huge oversight on their part.”  
“I suppose if they told children they could just as easily live without them, they’d have no one left.” My sniffed, trying to ignore the guilt coiling in her gut. True, the Mymble family’s way of life wasn’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea-- there was a reason she was staying with the Moominfamily now-- but as overcrowded and impersonal as growing up in their clan was, she could only imagine how much worse it would have been in an orphanage. All your fault. “Was-- was there anything else in the basket with you, when they found you?”  
Snufkin gave her a look. “... Yes. My hat was in there with me. Why do you ask?”  
“I-- I thought I recognised your hat.” My stopped herself from saying any more, closely examining Snufkin’s face for a reaction. 

Snufkin didn’t seem to react at all to her statement-- but there again, that was suspicious in itself, My thought. There ought to have been some kind of change in his expression, even if it was just puzzlement or dismissiveness. “You did?” He asked, his eyes fixed on the bobber. “Where from, do you think?”  
This was it. My took a deep breath.   
“When I was younger, my mother was stepping out with a Joxter. Still does, I think, whenever they see each other. They’re about as fond of each other as any married couple, and more than some, though they’ll never settle down.” My grimaced. What was she playing at, dancing around the issue like this? This was the sort of thing that she’d usually poke fun at Moomin for doing. “What I’m trying to say, is-- he had a hat like that, once.”  
Snufkin seemed to relax. “Oh. Well, that’s quite a coincidence, but hardly anything to make a fuss about. Joxters all wear these hats-- it could be that it was left to me by the one your mother was fond of, but it could just as likely have been another.”  
My clenched her jaw tightly. There was nothing for it-- she’d have to tell him outright. “... It is his hat. I know because-- because I was the one who put it in the basket with you.”

Snufkin went completely still. His eyes, usually so calm, brimmed over with some unidentifiable emotion. As My watched, his hands began to shake, his grip on the fishing rod slackening until it tumbled from his paws, almost plummeting into the river before My darted forward and caught it.   
Little My felt his eyes on her back as she straightened up, clasping the fishing pole to her chest. It wasn’t exactly the epitome of craftsmanship, she noticed, in the way that one does when one’s mind is desperately looking for something to distract itself from its current situation: the wood hadn’t been varnished, and it was covered in marks and splinters. He must have made it himself. Did he make a new one every time his old fishing rod broke, then? How did he get the things he needed to make them? Why did the things he used to make them not include any varnish?

Her mind was doing such a good job of distracting itself that when Snufkin began to speak it caught her quite off guard.   
“... You put me in the basket,” he said slowly. My wished she could see his face, but that would mean turning around and facing him, and she wasn’t sure if she could bear that.   
“I was minding you while Mother was out,” she forced herself to say, tightening her grip on the fishing rod, her knuckles going white. “I-- I was going out, to the river and I-- I put you in the basket to take you there--” Not a lie, exactly, but enough of one to make her insides tie themselves into shameful knots, “-- and you-- you managed to tip yourself in.”  
A brief pause. “Why were you going to the river?”  
Of course he picked up on the half-truth, Little My thought bitterly, feeling her throat tighten and her eyes begin to itch. He put up with Moomin’s desperate blustering every day, of course he could call a bluff when he heard one. Her voice high and thin with the effort it took to speak, she forced the words out.   
“I-- I wanted to go boat racing.”

Silence, broken only by the sound of the river below them. It was running rather fast for this time of year, Little My thought, the tension in her stomach growing harder to bear the longer the quiet stretched on-- if anything fell in, it would be carried away quicker than one could reach to fish it out. The rushing water began to look a little too familiar for her liking as she gazed into its depths, and she screwed her eyes shut, as though she could cut herself out of the situation as easily as she could cut off her sight.   
It was almost comforting, at first, to stand there unable to see anything but the darkness behind her eyelids. The splashing of the river was still loud in her ears, but without the sight of it to distract her, she could pick out other sounds-- the stirring of the trees as the breeze flitted through their branches, the calls of the family of sparrows nesting in the eaves of Moominhouse nearby, the distant, crackling music from the old gramophone from where it sat on the veranda. It all sounded so normal, so far away from the frantic racing of her heart and the squirming in her guts and the endless _your fault your fault your fault_ in her head. How could something that sounded so close seem so very far away?

A new sound, suddenly: the sound of someone sighing and getting to their feet. My turned to see Snufkin standing up and dusting off his smock, his expression unreadable. She caught his gaze briefly, and had just enough time to see a damp glimmer at the corners of his eyes before he looked away from her.   
“Could I have my fishing rod back, please?”  
His voice was lower, gruffer than usual, but carefully steady in tone. Little My clutched the fishing pole tighter to her chest.   
“If-- If I give it back to you, will you ever come fishing here again?” She hated how her own voice cracked and caught on every syllable, a stuttering whisper that had almost nothing in common with her usual strident tones. Snufkin made an indistinct little noise.   
“I-- I don’t know. I need to-- to be on my own, to think.”  
Her fingers tensed around the worn wood, the impulse to pull it close and demand he just tell her that he never wanted to see her again outright almost overwhelming-- but she managed to loosen her grip and pass it to him, carefully avoiding meeting his eyes. He nodded his head once, then turned around, away from her.   
“I-- I’m sorry.” She hated it. All of it, but especially how useless a thing that was to say, to feel. It didn’t matter how terrible she felt, how remorseful she was-- she couldn’t give Snufkin back what he’d lost due to what she’d done. No matter how many years had passed, she was still so very little, so weak.   
Snufkin paused, then gave her another awkward nod.   
“Thank you.”  
He looked like he might say something else for a second, but then turned and walked away.

Little My watched him go, a thin, bleak mood descending on her.   
There are certain kinds of misery which are too great for a person to really feel in their entirety. Kinds of misery which leave your world grey and desolate, stained with tears you can’t shed and anger you can’t release. Since no one is able to feel that amount of despair, to feel so entirely bereft of hope, you merely feel numb; an empty shell about to be crushed by an enormous weight that always seems like it’s about to descend on you but never does.   
It was this that Little My felt on that sunny day in Moominvalley, watching her newly-found brother leave her life again. This time, there was no desperate chase, no flailing lunges, no battle for survival. This time, she merely stood there on the bridge as he disappeared inside his tent, almost certainly to pack up his few possessions and leave the valley for who knows how long. The sky and the trees and Moominhouse all began to blur together as a dampness welled up in her eyes, and she quickly sat down, blinking to try and get rid of the smeariness in her vision. She knew it would turn out like this; of course she did. 

Snorkmaiden could talk all she wanted about forgiveness and how adults were supposed to keep their children safe, but in the end, when you cut away all the frills and fripperies, she was still the one who had tried to put her baby brother in a river. No one had forced her to, no one had even suggested the idea to her-- she’d come up with it all herself. It was only right that she be the one to pay the price. Still, as the tears kept coming and her breaths turned into something more like sobs, she couldn’t help but wish that life wasn’t quite so unforgiving. 


	4. In Which Several Ingredients Get Destroyed

Cupboards were much maligned as living spaces, Little My thought. Once, when she’d been left alone at Moominhouse for a few days without a policeman in sight to chase, she’d resorted to reading books, and according to those most people thought that being confined to a cupboard was akin to hitting the bottom of the barrel. Those writers must never have actually spent time in a cupboard, decided Little My, or they would have surely changed their tune. Take the one she was in, for example: spacious, warm from being so near to the oven in the kitchen, and stocked with food. True, most of that food was just bags of sugar and flour and other things to make baked goods with, but there was one half-empty jar of currants, and whoever complained about being made to eat sugar was a fool to the highest degree, in My’s opinion. She grabbed another handful of demerara from the nearest bag and shovelled it into her mouth, munching contentedly, trying to ignore the gritty itching in her sleeve where some of it had spilled in. 

“My? Little My?”

My scowled, and reached for the sugar again. That was another advantage of cupboards: no irritating moomins, moping about their best friend leaving, or yelling your ear off once they heard that you were maybe responsible. Honestly, you’d think after you told them that you perhaps might have had a hand in it, they would understand and realise that no amount of moaning would do anything about it, rather than going on and on at all hours of the day about how you were a terrible person who could only be happy when other people were miserable, and how you were so nasty and thoughtless that it was only a matter of time before you chased Snufkin off, and how they were about to go and join him in running away so they’d no longer have to be around you. 

“I-- I-- I had a talk with Mamma, and, well, she said that-- that-- um, anyway, I’m sorry about what I said. If, um, if you could come out from wherever you’re hiding, then I-- I promise I won’t, um, go on about it any more.”

My kept the door firmly shut. Oh, Moomin certainly would try not to go on about it any more-- for all that he was an idiot, he wasn’t deliberately cruel-- but she’d still see him moping about, still see him mournfully gazing out the window at the empty campground, still know that he was thinking those things about her. No thank you. And what was Moominmamma doing, talking about her behind her back like that? My had begrudgingly explained to her why the vagabond's tent wasn’t in its usual place, but she’d told her that so she’d stop fretting and fussing about where he’d gone (and maybe to stop her gently asking if anything was wrong), not so she’d have something to gossip about. 

“... So, um, you don’t want to talk, then? That-- that’s fine. I don’t mind, you need your space, I know how that can-- well, anyway, if you do want to say hello, at any point, I-- I won’t bother you about-- about that. Um, so, you know that now, and-- um.” A pause, and a long, drawn-out exhale. “I’m sorry, Little My.”

More silence. My continued to sit in the cupboard. Eventually, she heard Moomin leave, but not before he’d given another great sigh. She felt a stab of regret at hearing that, but quickly squashed it-- she knew that nothing good would come from talking to him, after all. Stupid Moomin, not realising that. It was his fault she was feeling this way (only it wasn’t, it really wasn't, but she'd already had her cry a few days ago and she was determined not to do it again).

That train of thought was thankfully derailed when she heard someone else entering the kitchen. It was unlikely to be Moomin, given that he’d only just left, and Moominpappa, while he’d try and be supportive, tended to panic when confronted with emotional distress (not that she was upset. She was fine): he was probably barricaded in his study upstairs, safe from any sobbing that may occur (though again, she wasn’t going to cry). So, that left Moominmamma. Doubtless she was eager to have some sickeningly sweet heart-to-heart about feelings or suchlike: she’d been fairly chomping at the bit to mother-hen her ever since My had finally caved and told her why Snufkin wasn’t in the valley any more. My really didn’t want to talk more about it-- she’d explained what happened, wasn’t that enough?-- but on the other, even she had to begrudgingly admit that Mamma had a certain way about her that made it feel a little less humiliating talking about such things. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad… Cautiously, she cracked open the cupboard door. 

"Little My?"  
Drat. That definitely wasn’t Moominmamma, that was Snorkmaiden. Little My very much didn’t want to talk to Snorkmaiden: while usually she’d be only too glad to rub someone’s nose in the fact that they were wrong about something, exactly what Snorkmaiden was wrong about rather spoiled it all. She jerked the door shut with a loud bang.   
“My…” There was a pause, followed by the sound of someone getting down on their knees right beside her hiding spot. “I don’t want to pry, but-- Moominmamma says you’ve been in there for two days. Did-- did something go wrong, when you talked to Snufkin?”  
She may have resolved not to talk, but such stupidity couldn’t go unchallenged. “If nothing had gone wrong, do you really think he would’ve left and I’d be in here?” She winced at how thin and broken her voice sounded. Even a resolution to toughen up and one and a half bags of sugar hadn’t had much effect on her mood, apparently.   
She rankled at the sigh that followed her answer. “I’m sorry, My. I really need to stop asking ridiculous questions.”  
“You do.” There. That sentence was short enough that her voice didn’t wobble too much. Maybe Snorkmaiden would leave now.   
She didn’t. "Do you-- need anything? You've been in there for quite a while.”  
"I'm _fine_. If I needed anything, I would get out."  
“Would you? Or would you stay in there, because you hate people seeing you upset?”  
Ugh, she’d forgotten that Snorkmaiden could be so perceptive. “At the moment, I’m staying in here because some people can’t mind their own beeswax and keep asking me annoying questions.”  
An irritated huff came from the other side of the door. “My, if you really want me to leave you alone, then I will--”  
“Good! Yes, I want that!”  
“-- but maybe if something did go wrong, it’s something I can help with. I mean, I know that hiding from all your problems in a cupboard is the best way to deal with this, but actually dealing with things is a close second.”

Little My hated how reasonable a suggestion it was on the surface. It was almost something she herself would say, it seemed such good sense. But though she was aware that lurking here forever wasn’t going to fix her problems, she was fairly certain that nothing else would do so either.   
“I can’t fix things.” She said finally, sinking down to sprawl on the cupboard’s floor.   
“Are you sure?”  
It was My’s turn to huff irritatedly. “If you think I can somehow bring Snufkin back before he’s good and ready you’re out of your mind.”  
“That’s true, I suppose,” sighed Snorkmaiden. Little My scowled. Though she did enjoy people realising she was right (again, especially if it meant them admitting they were wrong), the fact was that that left her with very little to do but stay tucked away in here until Snufkin decided to come back. Perhaps some part of her had hoped that the other girl would be magically able to produce some perfect solution that even My hadn’t been able to think of-- she resolved to give whatever part of her that was a stern talking-to later.   
“So you go on and on at me like that to make things right, and then you have no idea how to make anything better? Wow. Some help you are.”  
A frustrated sound came from the other side of the door, the sort that you could tell was accompanied by an eye roll even if you couldn't see the person making it. “You're not listening! I didn’t say you had to fix things-- I know what Snufkin’s like, if he doesn’t want to see you, then trying to find him is one of the worst things you can do-- but you can’t stay in here forever. At some point, you need to get on with your life, no matter how difficult it seems.”  
“Ugh, you’re useless!” Little My leapt to her feet, suddenly snapped out of her listless state by the sheer rage running through her. “Don’t you know that I know that? I want to get out-- I’m sick of staying in here! I’m sick of how hot it gets when there’s something cooking in the oven and I can’t open the door! I’m sick of getting pins and needles in my legs because there isn’t much to do except sit still! I’m even getting sick of sugar!” She flung a hand out in an effort to express her frustrations, and managed to knock over a sack of flour and a bottle of vinegar. The smashing sound and resulting mess did little to relieve her feelings for once. “But what, exactly, is waiting for me out there that's any better? Moominmamma looking at me like I’m some sad baby animal she wants to coddle? Moominpappa blustering about and guiltily making excuses to leave whenever I show my face, in case I burst into tears in front of him? Moomintroll hating me for driving his dearest friend away forever?!” She paused to gasp for breath. “Everyone either hates or pities me, and I’m done with trying to ignore it. So just do us both a favour, and _leave me alone_.”

Silence followed My’s outburst, filled only with the sound of her trying to get her breath back and the steady drip of vinegar spilling out of what was left of its bottle. She would almost have thought that Snorkmaiden had left, were it not for the fact that there were no footsteps. Eventually, the silence stretched to an uncomfortable extent, and My decided to break it for the sake of her own sanity.  
"Nothing to say? No wise advice to give?"  
More silence, to the point where My began to wonder if the other girl had fallen unconscious or died somehow (and wouldn't that put a tin lid on the whole situation). Then, finally:  
"I-- I don't think I should say anything else. My saying things certainly hasn't helped so far." Snorkmaiden's voice was barely more than a murmur, each syllable spoken so gingerly that it almost wasn't spoken at all. “I’m-- I’m sorry.”  
While My knew she should probably apologise for lashing out and ask Snorkmaiden what was wrong, she’d been so angry that the momentum was still carrying her forward, even with no force behind it to carry it along.  
"Well-- you should be! What made you think you were qualified to tell people how to live their lives?"  
"I don't-- I don't know." My felt a stab of guilt at how close Snorkmaiden seemed to crying. "I just-- I wanted to help, and I thought, maybe, I could-- I’m sorry. The best thing I could have done is keep my mouth shut.”   
“Um,” Little My wasn’t sure what to say.   
“It’s just-- everyone always seems to know what to say and do, in situations like this, you know?”  
Little My gave a disdainful snort, despite the shame curdling in her stomach. “You think Moominpappa and Moomintroll have any idea what to do with me at the moment?” Her mouth quirked up into a crooked smile at the weak little giggle that came from the other side of the cupboard door.   
“Well, no, but-- well, that’s boys for you, isn’t it? I mean, girls are supposed to know what to do, with things like this, and-- and I’ve just ruined everything. Why am I always so _useless_ when this sort of thing happens?” Her voice was getting more fragile again, the pent-up emotion behind it pushing it to its breaking point. “I-- I should know what to do, and I never do, and I-- I just-- I thought, finally, I could actually help you, but-- but it’s all gone wrong.” The sentence broke off suddenly, the silence followed by the muffled sounds of someone desperately trying not to burst into tears. 

Oh no. This was one of those strange Snorkmaiden things which My could never understand for the life of her, wasn’t it? The sorts of things that came from trying to fit yourself neatly into a box that others had presented you with and told you to get inside, even if you had to chop off some bits of yourself to do it. My fiddled with the hem of her smock, avoiding the spots which had been splashed with vinegar, wishing that she had some idea what she was supposed to do in this situation. Come to think of it--  
“Well-- if it makes you feel any better, I never know what to do with this sort of thing either." She winced at how pathetic it sounded. _Don’t worry, we’re both failures who have no clue what we’re doing! Does that cheer you up?_  
The tearful sniffling stopped. “But-- it’s different, for you.”  
My bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”  
“No, I don’t mean that--” Snorkmaiden paused, and sighed. “I just-- you never seemed to need to be good at that sort of thing. You’re always so utterly, completely yourself, and sometimes that person wasn’t very good at her own feelings or other people’s, but you didn’t need to be perfect at that all the time, because you had your own ways of helping people, and everyone knew that. I-- I don’t think even I know how I’m meant to help other people. I never know what I’m meant to do, who I’m meant to be. Sometimes I feel like I’ve just been pretending to be someone all my life, and I’ve been doing it for so long that I might never find out who I really am.” There was another sudden break in the flow of words, though this time there were no tears-- only a hollow silence. My longed to fill it, even more than she had the previous one, but what was she even meant to say? 

Then, suddenly, there was a sound-- a surprised little “hm” from Snorkmaiden, the sort of sound one might make when one has realised something.   
“What is it?” said Little My.   
“I just realised-- what I was saying, about not knowing who I was meant to be-- I suppose that must be what it’s like for Snufkin, right? I mean, he’s always absolutely himself, of course, but-- he was never told who he was, never had anyone who could tell him. He had to work it all out for himself, with whatever he had to hand. And now, you come along, with all the answers, but those answers might not go with what he’s already decided about himself and who he is… I suppose, what I’m trying to say, is-- he has sort of the opposite problem to me, you know? He thought he’d worked out exactly who he was meant to be, and now he’s been told a lot of stuff that suddenly makes everything a lot more complicated.”

My’s brow furrowed. Snorkmaiden's explanation was rambling and convoluted, but it did kind of make sense. She herself was very clear on who she was, but she had had a strong foundation to build that identity on-- a childhood surrounded by family who could give her answers when she asked for them, years to safely observe the world and how she fit into it before she decided that _yes, this fits, this is me_. Her brother had never had that security. She thought about that tiny snufkin from years ago, stumbling his way through his first steps into the big wide world. Piecing little bits of experiences and memories together, gradually making someone he could be, a person that was wholly himself and not just someone he was told to be by some cold matron at an orphanage. And finally, having his carefully constructed creation dashed apart by a stilted confession from some mymble child who in another life, could have been his sister. 

Little My blinked, trying to dispel the water welling up in her eyes. It didn’t work-- instead, the tears spilled out onto her cheeks, and kept falling. But even while her face got damper and damper, something inside her had eased slightly: she knew the shape of the fear that had sent Snufkin running now, and once you knew the shape of something, it was a little less scary. It was when it was still blurry and bewildering that it had power over you; especially when you were like Snufkin, and had the sort of mind that was very good at imagining all the terrible things it could be and could do to you. That was why he bolted at times like this-- so he could be alone while he sorted through all those terrifying shapes and ideas, until he’d neatly packed them away until further notice and could talk to people without them springing up on him suddenly. Of course, the problem then was not getting lost in his fear while he was doing that, still with no one who could give him answers or something to steady himself on. 

But this time, Snufkin didn’t have to be alone. Maybe he didn’t have a sister while he was growing up, but he had one now, and she didn’t intend to let her brother drive himself round the twist with his own thoughts. With a grunt, she hauled herself to her feet, and pushed open the cupboard door. 

“Okay, Snorkmaiden, you’re the one with all the bright ideas. Where do you think Snufkin could have gone?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: In Which The Author Goes Off On One About Snorkmaiden (She Really Deserves So Much Better)


End file.
